


Shelter at Your Door

by starfishstar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (there's no infidelity or anything – it's an entirely alternate scenario), F/M, I know I know I know how weird that pairing sounds but bear with me!, It's AU, and I promise that makes it all right, very very AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3261224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years, one young man keeps turning up at Andromeda's door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dogs on the Doorstep (1975)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, see, two things happened.
> 
> First, I wrote a (canon-compliant) story about Andromeda and Ted and how they got together, so I spent a lot of time thinking about Andromeda’s transformation from dutiful Black family daughter to rebel who abandoned her family for love. How much of that was innate to her personality and her own sense of justice, how much of it was thanks to the catalyst of meeting Ted? Where might she have ended up if they’d never met?
> 
> Second, I wrote a (canon-compliant) Remus/Tonks story that included a conversation between Remus and Andromeda. And as I wrote it I realized, man, I have to be so careful not to let the interaction between these two have even a whiff of anything that could read as potentially romantic, because how weird and wrong would that be? She’s his mother-in-law! He’s married to her daughter! But it’s hard not to write Andromeda and Remus interacting like peers, because I do think they have a lot in common, and they’re of the same age cohort – just seven years apart.
> 
> Then, accidentally, a third thing happened. Mind wandering while on a long hike, I found myself spinning out this AU scenario where Andromeda’s life went very differently. And then I was so intrigued I couldn’t stop!
> 
> I’m a canon shipper at heart, and a devoted writer of Remus/Tonks stories. And I feel okay about this very, very AU pairing only because this is indeed entirely AU, set in a world where Tonks and her family as we know it never even existed.
> 
> (My Andromeda/Ted story, if you want to know my imagining of Andromeda’s canon backstory before delving into this AU version of the same, is “ [A New World Bursting into Bloom](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1961700).” That’s not necessary in order to read this story, though!)
> 
> Thank you to [stereolightning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning) for beta-reading!

Andromeda opened the door of Malfoy Manor and was not in the least surprised to find Sirius standing there.

Lately, her cousin had started showing up on her doorstep with depressing regularity. He was fifteen now, dark haired and too handsome for his own good, and hell-bent on disagreeing with his parents in every way he could. During summer holidays and school breaks he was forever getting himself thrown out of Uncle Orion and Auntie Walburga's house, at which point he would turn up like a lost dog here at the Manor, Andromeda's marital home.

"'Lo, Andromeda," Sirius said, aiming for casual despite his chattering teeth. He had his arms clenched around himself in the late spring chill, clearly having stormed out of his parents' house once again without the foresight to grab a warm cloak. "Can we come in for a bit?"

That plural pronoun "we" was because Sirius had a friend along with him, Remus Lupin this time. Unlike Sirius, Remus was sensibly outfitted in a grey cardigan and smiling apologetically.

More often than not, when Sirius turned up at Andromeda's door, he did so with a friend or two in tow. Sometimes it was reckless James Potter, who was no better than Sirius when it came to thinking things through – or _not_ thinking things through – before he did something rash. Or sycophantic Peter Pettigrew, who did Sirius no good either, fawning over his every move. Or sometimes, as today, it was quiet Remus Lupin, who Andromeda was coming to suspect might be the sole sensible person in her young cousin's increasingly unmoored life.

And yes, Andromeda included herself in that assessment, knew she fell into the category of dangerously foolish people who did not serve her cousin as role models. She was married to a man she detested, and had detested all through school and through the many family functions over the years, at which Lucius had smirked at her from behind that pale blonde fringe, knowing that their parents intended them for one another and that she couldn't do a thing about it.

There wasn't a great deal of choice, when you were born a daughter of the Black family. The old, pure-blood families had first and foremost to ensure the continuance of their magical line, so you married the man your family chose for you, or risked being disowned.

So Andromeda had let them marry her off to Malfoy, because she didn't want to be disowned, did she?

Pushing aside her uncomfortable reflections, Andromeda arched an eyebrow at Sirius, but stepped back to let the two of them pass.

"Thanks, Andromeda," Remus murmured as he passed her. "And sorry for, you know." He jerked his head in Sirius' direction.

Andromeda only let Sirius into the house when Lucius was away, knowing how her husband disapproved of her rebellious cousin, but Lucius was away much of the time these days. Andromeda didn't like the company her husband kept, and she didn't like at all the way he smirked whenever the Dark Lord was mentioned, as if he and he alone were in possession of a wonderful secret.

Was this was the world in which Andromeda wanted her child growing up, surrounded by self-satisfied, cruel people who loved the Dark Arts above all else? How could it be that irresponsible Sirius was already showing more spine than Andromeda ever had done?

She ushered Sirius and Remus into the sitting room and brought them tea (because it was the civilised thing to do, even if Sirius didn't care about such things) and chocolate biscuits (because they always seemed to be hungry, these growing teenage boys).

Andromeda's small son, Isidore, was sprawled in the middle of the rich brocade carpet. He was playing with his Indefatigable Jumping Frog, the tips of his own hair going a wispy green colour as his body concentrated intently on his play. It made Andromeda smile, that flash of unintentional brightness clashing with the obsessively coordinated colour scheme of the Manor. At two years old, Isidore's transformations were still largely accidental, but Andromeda secretly looked forward to what Isidore might do once he was old enough to exercise his Metamorphmagus abilities deliberately.

Lucius had wanted to name the baby Draco, but at that, Andromeda had finally put her foot down. Enough with the constellation names, enough with that weight of tradition. Had it made any of them happy, bearing these proud Black family names that repeated again and again through the generations, turning up like unlucky Knuts? Had it done them any good, Bellatrix with her icy-eyed Rodolphus who made Andromeda's blood run cold, Sirius frantically rebelling as if his very life depended on it, Regulus who never seemed to do anything but pout?

Andromeda had named her son Isidore, because he was indeed a gift, the only member of the family she was sure she could love without restraint.

Sirius merely ruffled Isidore's green-tipped blonde hair distractedly as he passed by on his way to do some sprawling of his own on the gilt-edged chaise longue, but Remus stopped to kneel down on the carpet beside the boy. "Hullo, Izzy," he said. "What have you got there? A frog?"

"A _jumping_ frog," Isidore said, and started explaining, in his sweet-pitched baby voice, all about his frog and how it liked to jump "really, really high, up to the ceiling, even!" Remus listened and nodded along seriously. They made an unexpectedly sweet picture, the lanky teen with sandy hair falling in his eyes, devoting his whole attention to the chubby-cheeked two-year-old.

Andromeda's heart clenched as she wondered, _When was the last time Isidore's own father looked at him like that?_ Lucius was pleased to have a son, certainly, but he didn't show much interest in Isidore beyond his function as heir. Lucius' passion was all for power and intrigue, not for getting to know his own child.

"I swear, one of these days I'm gonna leave for good," Sirius was proclaiming from the chaise longue. He had his head flung dramatically over its back, one hand trailing against the floor like that of some fainting Victorian maiden. "Won't they be sorry then, though? I don't have to put up with their crap if I don't want to."

Deep in the hidden recesses of Andromeda's mind, she felt a sense of determination of her own beginning to take shape.


	2. An Owl at the Window (1979)

Andromeda woke to a harsh, irregular rapping sound, like hail on a metal roof. She gasped as sleep lurched away from her, then forcibly calmed her breathing when she remembered where she was.

Home. Her own home, hers and Isidore's. She had not shared a bed or a life with Lucius for over a year now, and Andromeda hadn't looked back from that decision for even a moment.

After Andromeda had left, taking her son and a very few possessions and slipping away in the night as if she were the thief, not Lucius and his terrifying cronies, her husband had ranted and raved and threatened in increasingly alarming letters to hunt her down.

Andromeda had made her new home, a little cottage in a Muggle village, Unplottable and Disillusioned it and was a hair's breadth away from finding someone to perform a Fidelius Charm – throwing herself at Professor Dumbledore's mercy, if need be, for lack of anyone else in her life she trusted enough to ask – when Lucius had abruptly lost interest.

The Dark Lord had probably told him that Andromeda, as a traitor to their kind, wasn't worth the fuss. He had likely promised to provide Lucius with a better and purer woman, one with whom he would have many more pure-blood sons, in exchange for Lucius' unquestioning loyalty to the Dark Lord's plots. Whatever it was that had diverted Lucius, Andromeda didn't much care, if it turned his attention away from her and Isidore.

And then today, on a rare and reluctantly undertaken shopping trip to Diagon Alley, Andromeda had overheard the excited chatter.

She didn't like going to Diagon Alley. It was a painful reminder of the things she did miss from the world she'd left: the quirky, colourful shops, the sensation of magic zinging through the air around her – these were things Andromeda missed in self-imposed exile in her little cottage, where she quietly led a mostly-Muggle life.

Besides, in Diagon Alley she spent her time fearing at every turn that she would run into someone she didn't want to see – or someone who didn't want to see her. Andromeda didn't know what kind of violence Bellatrix might do, if confronted in the flesh with her blood-traitor sister.

This time, when she went to pick up a few magical toys for Isidore and spellbooks for herself, Andromeda had managed not to run into anyone she hadn't wished to see. But she had overheard the chatter, on street corners and in shop doorways, about the season's big news: handsome, well-connected Lucius Malfoy was remarrying, to beautiful, demure Narcissa Black.

Andromeda had wondered if they would. An ancient wizarding tradition (no longer followed by most people, but Blacks and Malfoys _would_ be the most determinedly anachronistic, even among pure-bloods) said that when a man's wife died, he could exercise his right to take her unmarried sister as his second spouse. Andromeda was dead as far as her family were concerned. And while Lucius hadn't cared much one way or another about Andromeda herself, he'd certainly liked being connected to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

And Narcissa, for reasons unfathomable, had always thought Lucius Malfoy an absolute catch.

What a pair they would make, passers-by were saying to each other in Diagon Alley, gorgeous Narcissa Black and glamorous Lucius Malfoy.

What a shame he didn't pick the right sister the first time round, Andromeda heard a beaky-nosed little wizard whispering to a pock-faced shop assistant leaning in the doorway of Twilfitt and Tatting's.

Anyone who was _anyone_ would be at the wedding, Andromeda heard one pink-cheeked witch exclaiming to another outside Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Andromeda cut her shopping trip short, returning home without the books she'd wanted, finding it difficult to catch her breath but feeling shatteringly glad that, these days, she was not considered "anyone."

She searched herself for signs of jealousy, of anger, but couldn't find it in herself to care that she'd been so thoroughly erased from the world she'd once inhabited. Not if it meant freedom from fear, for herself and her son.

At least she'd managed to secure her share of the Black family gold before her parents had heard the news of her departure and disowned her. At least Isidore remained, as he had always been, a gentle-hearted, easy-going child.

Andromeda often found herself studying him anxiously, searching for marks left on him by those years of growing up in a house where Dark wizards whispered in the library at all hours of the night, but she saw none. Isidore was hale and hearty, and content at his Muggle primary school, a cheerful place where the corridors were adorned with riotous crayon drawings and figures cut inexpertly from construction paper.

Around them, the wizarding world was falling apart, lurching into horrifying open war, but at least Andromeda had managed to keep her child safe.

She tried not to worry too much about Sirius, who had finished Hogwarts now and got his own flat, after Uncle Alphard had passed away and left both Andromeda and Sirius some gold. Though they never talked about it more than obliquely, Andromeda knew Sirius and his friends were deeply involved in the counter-movement against the Dark Lord. All Andromeda could do was hope those impulsive and good-hearted boys knew what they were doing.

She tried not to think too much about Regulus, bearing all the weight as sole heir to the Black family, now that Sirius had left them. It didn't do to dwell on Regulus. There were only so many Andromeda could save.

The rapping sound continued. Andromeda was lost in her thoughts, there in the darkness of her bedroom, adrift in half-surfaced memories of a hail-strewn night when they were small – Narcissa couldn't have been more than four – and a freak storm late in summer had brought balls of ice pounding down on the roof of their country mansion. Father had let all three of them, Bella and Andromeda and Cissy, sit up late with him in the golden-domed observatory at the top of the house, listening to the hail that slammed against the glass panels of the roof so hard that Andromeda felt sure at any moment the glass would shatter and the whole house come tumbling down.

But this wasn't hail, making such a noise at the window of Andromeda's cottage; it was an owl, tapping its beak impatiently, insistently, against the bedroom window. An owl with a letter clutched in its talons, and the determined expression of a bird that knew its obligations and would not consent to leave until they had been discharged.

Andromeda fumbled her way out of the bedclothes, crossed to the window and lifted the latch. The owl tumbled inside, gave a disgruntled hoot, then dropped the letter at Andromeda's feet and soared back out through the open window without so much as waiting for an owl treat.

Andromeda bent to pick up the letter, a piece of parchment hastily tied with a bit of string and bearing no address, only her name. She picked apart the badly knotted string and unrolled the parchment, a strange trepidation rising in her chest.

_Regulus is dead_ , read Sirius' untidy scrawl, the letters cramped and tortured in a way Andromeda had never seen them before. _Just thought you would want to know._


	3. A Wayfaring Stranger (1981)

As fireworks burst into riotous bloom in the sky throughout the country – Voldemort was gone, it was _over_ – Andromeda opened her door to a hesitant knock, and Remus Lupin fairly fell into her cottage, his face chalky pale, his eyes stricken and wide.

"They're dead," he said, staring blindly ahead as Andromeda steered him into the sitting room and then to the sofa, where he sank like a stone onto the cushions. "It was Sirius." Then he simply repeated himself. "They're dead, oh my god, it was Sirius."

Andromeda gripped his hand, for his comfort or her own, she didn't know. " _What_ was Sirius?" she asked. She'd heard the horrific news of James and Lily Potter's deaths, heard of the miraculous survival of their infant son, Harry, the same age as Narcissa's boy. She'd mourned the Potters' deaths as if they had been her own friends, for the sake of all they'd done for Sirius over the years. But she hadn't had any news of her troublesome cousin himself.

Voice breaking with grief, Remus told her: Sirius had betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort, then killed Peter. Sirius had been arrested and taken straight to Azkaban. Sirius was gone.

When Isidore arrived home from school that afternoon, Andromeda asked him to please keep his voice low, because their friend Remus was visiting and he wasn't feeling well, so he was taking a nap on the sofa. Isidore nodded his understanding, then settled himself quietly on the floor with a favourite book next to where Remus lay insensible to the world around him. Isidore's hair even began subtly to shift until it was the same shade as Remus', something Andromeda had noticed often happened when he was feeling empathy.

Andromeda and Isidore ate a quiet dinner in the kitchen, worked through the maths and geography questions that were his homework for the next day, and read a bedtime story together, tucked in close in the big wooden rocking chair that stood in the corner of his bedroom, and all the while Andromeda carefully didn't think about Sirius.

She checked on their visitor throughout the evening, but Remus, his face lined and so grey with pain that Andromeda began to worry he truly was ill, slept like the dead all through that horrible day and awful night. Once Isidore was in bed, Andromeda pulled a footstool up next to the sofa and watched Remus sleep, as though keeping that vigil might somehow make any of it less true.

Deep in the dark of night, when she could no longer find excuses for staying awake, Andromeda, too, went upstairs to bed, but sleep eluded her. She tossed and turned, eyes burning but dry.

When she woke in the pale hours of dawn, having finally fallen into a fitful, brief sleep, Andromeda came downstairs to find Remus gone, leaving behind no trace of his presence but a note on the kitchen table, in his distinctively precise hand:

_Andromeda, thank you for everything. I'm leaving England. I can't stay here. I'm sorry._

_RJL_

Andromeda stared for a long time at the note she held. Then she laid it gently back down on the tabletop, went upstairs to Isidore's room and gathered his warm, sleeping weight into her arms. Only then did she cry, silently, so as not to wake her son.

She cried for Sirius, and the person he could have been. She cried for his friends Lily and James and Peter, their deaths so senseless. She cried for baby Harry, orphaned overnight, too young to know his parents and the good people they had been. She cried for Remus, who'd lost everyone he loved. And she cried a little, too, for herself and Isidore, left now with no family at all.

Andromeda knew perfectly well that Remus, ever conscientious even in the depths of his grief, had closed the door behind himself when he left. Yet she couldn't help but feel as if an icy, invisible wind were tearing through her house, lifting drapes and lampshades and the leaves of books, getting its claws under everything that was not firmly fastened down, ripping away all she had thought she knew.


	4. A Wolf at the Door (1984)

Remus looked a decade older than when Andromeda had seen him last. There were unfamiliar lines around his eyes, threads of grey in his hair. Andromeda blinked at him, there on her doorstep like an apparition from another life, and reminded herself that this haggard-looking young man was only twenty-four, the same age as Sirius.

No, she wouldn't think about Sirius.

"Come in, please," she said to her unexpected guest, surprised to hear emotion welling up in her own voice. She had missed him, this serious, world-weary young man who understood her own grief.

"Thank you," Remus said, still shuffling uncertainly on the stone front step of her cottage. Andromeda reached out to usher him inside, and felt his bony shoulder blades sharp beneath her guiding hand.

It was nearly evening, so Andromeda skipped the offer of tea and moved straight to making him dinner. Remus demurred; Andromeda looked his gaunt frame up and down and told him to take a seat at the table. And despite his protests, Remus ate like a man who hadn't seen a proper meal in years.

"Where's Izzy today?" he asked as they ate. When Andromeda pointed out that Isidore was 11 years old now and had started his first year at Hogwarts, Remus dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, Merlin," he said. "Now I truly feel old." Then he blushed, remembering that she was another seven years older than he.

In many ways, rejoining the wizarding world had felt stranger to Andromeda than learning to live among Muggles had done. She had been slow and cautious in effecting her return, reconnecting one by one with a few people she'd known before, in her previous wizarding life. Not her family, of course, but others, fellow Hogwarts students she'd found level-headed and likeable at the time, and hoped might prove still to be so now.

She'd kept her house in the Muggle village, but had found a job at the Ministry as an administrative assistant to the Wizengamot, and she worked at it feverishly, madly, determined to leverage her way up to a position with the power to impact wizarding law-making as quickly as possible.

She had to try to make a difference, however small. Because Andromeda could see that nothing in the wizarding world had truly changed. Some Death Eaters were in prison now, certainly, but those who'd managed to weasel their way out of an Azkaban sentence were just as influential with the Ministry as they had ever been. Lucius had kept out of Azkaban, though Bellatrix and her husband hadn't, and Andromeda knew he was at the Ministry almost constantly, greasing palms. She kept away from the departments she knew he frequented. She had no desire to learn whether Lucius would pitch a fit at the sight of her, or if he would glide icily past as if she didn't exist.

This was still not a world in which she wanted her son to grow up. The open threat of Voldemort was gone, yes, but the prejudices that had allowed him to take over the minds of their society lingered and festered under the surface.

Andromeda wondered what had brought Remus back to wizarding Britain, after three long years away. Why now? Why ever, for that matter?

But she waited until they had finished their meal, and were sitting at the table in the warm lamplight and sipping the cognac she saved for special occasions, before she asked, "So, where have you been all this time, Remus?"

"Wandering," Remus said, with weariness in his voice. "Working when I could. Getting by, somehow."

"And what brought you back?" Andromeda asked, trying to make the question gentle.

Remus shrugged, his eyes pained. The lamplight rendered his face a little softer, a little younger, but his cheeks were still far too hollow, and his eyes were dark wells of memory. "Being elsewhere wasn't any better than being here, it turned out."

"Do you think you'll stay?"

"If I can find work. It's – sometimes, it's not–" Remus fingered the stem of his glass, seeming to struggle with himself. Then he said, "Andromeda, I'd like to tell you something." Finally, he looked up and met her gaze, his eyes startling and deep. No young man, she thought, should have such a world-weary gaze. "I'm a–" He swallowed, then visibly pushed on. "I'm a werewolf. That's why it's hard for me to find steady work, because I'm a werewolf."

Andromeda felt her mouth fall open, and closed it.

"Oh," she said.

She saw how Remus tensed. "I'm so sorry, I've misled you all these years without meaning to, I should have said–" He was already half-rising from his chair.

"No," Andromeda said. "Sit down, Remus."

He sat.

"You haven't misled me. Your medical condition is yours to disclose or not, as you wish. It doesn't concern me, and it doesn't change in the least how I think of you."

His voice baffled and small, Remus asked, "How do you think of me?"

Andromeda studied him, sitting there across the table from her, his face cast in half shadow now from the lamp beside the table. He wasn't a boy anymore, was he?

"Kind," she said. "Intelligent. Funny, when you want to be. Eminently capable of looking after yourself. But, Remus, you don't have to do everything alone. You're welcome here any time, I want you to know that."

"Thank you," Remus said, his voice hoarse. "I – thank you."

They met each other's eyes, and it occurred to Andromeda there, at the worn wooden table in her dining room with dusk falling around them, that she might well need Remus' friendship just as much as he clearly could do with hers.

She was sorry, truly sorry for Remus, that he hadn't been able to outrun his grief by running abroad. And yet she couldn't help but be glad, too, that in the end his restless path had brought him back here, to England and to her door. She hoped life here would go a little easier on him, this time around. She hoped this time he would choose to stay.


	5. A Spark (1986)

Isidore was in bed, despite his protests that he was thirteen and not a child, and having a set bedtime was ridiculous, and anyway it was _summer_ and it was still light out, so how was that fair?

Andromeda often had to bite her tongue against telling him just how good he had it compared to her own strict upbringing. But the paucity of information she shared with her son about the rest of the family was intentional. He didn't need to know that his grandparents on both sides considered his continued existence a disgrace – both she and her son had been blasted off the Black family tree, and Isidore, despite bearing the name Malfoy, was no longer that family's heir – nor that he had a mad, incarcerated aunt who would as soon kill him as look at him.

"You're far away," Remus commented, absently swirling the wine in his glass. Nearly two years of being a frequent visitor at their house, and he was finally loosening up enough to talk to Andromeda like a friend rather than an awe-inducing older sister. "What's on your mind?"

Andromeda sighed, settling further back against the sofa. "Family, I suppose. It still seems a bit mad to me that Isidore has grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that he's never known. Even a half-brother. Well, a half-brother who's also his first cousin." She gave a soft snort. "We always did take the prize for inbreeding, we Blacks."

Remus stiffened almost imperceptibly beside her, and belatedly Andromeda remembered that at hearing the name Black, Remus invariably thought first of Sirius, the friend he'd loved like a brother, who'd betrayed them all and devastated Remus' life.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I know you don't like being reminded of him. I ought not to talk about my family with you."

When Remus said nothing to that, Andromeda turned to look at him, and found him blinking at her, comical in his confusion.

"I've never – I mean –" he fumbled. "Andromeda, no, I've never meant to give you the impression you weren't allowed to talk about your family, about – Sirius' family." He stumbled a little over the name, but found his voice again. "Say as much as you like. I've simply had the impression you didn't like to talk about them, that's all."

"There's not much to say," Andromeda said. "I tried to play by their rules, for far longer than I should have done. I should have had the sense to get out before it even started, before I let them marry me off."

Remus gazed at the glass in his hand. "If you hadn't let them marry you off," he commented, voice level, "then you wouldn't have Isidore now. And that, it seems to me, would be an unfathomable loss."

Bizarrely, Andromeda thought then not of her own child, but of Harry, little Harry Potter. The boy who, in a more kindly world, ought to have been like a godson or a favourite nephew to lonely, family-deprived Remus. She'd asked Remus, once, whether he'd been in touch with Harry since his return to England. He'd answered "No" with such pain and terror in his voice that she'd never asked again.

"That's true," she agreed. "My son is worth a few years of having to watch Lucius Malfoy turn up his nose at everything I cared about."

Remus chuckled, and Andromeda leaned over to refill his glass. They were on their second bottle, a nice vintage of Merlot that had recently become a favourite of Andromeda's. She earned a good salary now, as a senior clerk for the Wizengamot, and she liked to treat Remus to nice things, whenever she thought she could slip it past him. She knew how little he had, and also much his pride prevented him from accepting anything that could be construed as charity. And Remus' definition of charity was frustratingly broad.

As Andromeda finished pouring and went to set the decanter back on the low table in front of them, her hand brushed accidentally against Remus'. She heard his quick intake of breath.

 _Oh_ , Andromeda thought.

She set the wine on the table, straightened up again, and turned to look at Remus. His eyes were wide and shocked, fixed on hers. He looked as if he were trying not to breathe.

Very carefully, leaving Remus plenty of time to turn away if he chose, Andromeda leaned in and kissed him. His lips were warm and tasted of wine.

Remus gasped, and pressed against her, his mouth eager but gentle. For three seconds, four, five, they were kissing, and the world was perfectly as it should be.

Then Remus startled back from Andromeda, panic flaring in his eyes again. "No," he said, his voice harsh with alarm. "No, I can't, you know what I am, it was wrong of me to–" He broke off, breathing hard. "Forgive me," he begged, real fear in his eyes that she might somehow fail to forgive him for doing something so good and right.

"There's nothing to forgive – Remus–" Andromeda tried to catch his hand, but he was standing, setting his wineglass on the table with shaking hands, avoiding her gaze.

"I ought to go," he muttered. "I shouldn't have – yes – I'm sorry–"

Then he was out the door and gone, even as Andromeda was jumping up from the sofa, calling after him.  
  
*

"Where's Remus been lately?" Isidore asked over breakfast a couple days later. "Usually he's over here all the time. Didn't scare him off, Mum, did you?"

"I imagine he's simply busy at the moment," Andromeda said, in what she hoped was a neutral but quelling tone. Sometimes she couldn't help but wish her son were just a little less perceptive.

"Mm-hm," Isidore said, smiling down at his porridge, and Andromeda wondered just what he saw, or imagined he saw. Had Isidore sensed something between her and Remus before even Andromeda herself had?

"Isidore," she felt compelled to say. "You know that Remus and I are just friends, right?"

"Yeah, Mum," Isidore said, his face all innocence – until Andromeda realised his nose was lengthening, almost imperceptibly.

Isidore had loved the story of Pinocchio, when he'd learned it at his Muggle primary school, and he'd spent months afterwards growing and shrinking his own nose in response to how truthful he felt the adults around him were being at any given time. And since Andromeda had had to train him very strictly never to let any sign of his magic show when he was at school, she tried not to curb him any more than necessary at home. So she had put up with him cheekily lengthening his nose at her whenever he disagreed with something she said. He'd outgrown the habit eventually, but it still made a brief reappearance now and again.

But he didn't say anything more, so Andromeda busied herself with washing up the breakfast dishes and let the question slip away.

One thing Isidore was right about, though: Remus truly was a frequent visitor at their house, more frequent than any of Andromeda's other friends, and his absence now felt strange, as if a part of their family were missing.  
  
*

Remus turned up again a week later, with a sheepish smile and a bottle of wine that he held out to Andromeda in an obvious peace offering.

"I'm sorry," he said, still lurking in the doorway, even after Andromeda had accepted the wine and motioned that he should come in. "I panicked and ran away. I shouldn't have run away. But, Andromeda, the panic was warranted. I'm not a safe person to get too close to, and I won't allow myself to do that to you. I can't even hold a job, let alone a position in respectable society. And the full moons – well, let's just say they're not nice at all."

Andromeda thought about how Remus always disappeared for a few days around the full moons, unwilling to inflict on her his physical discomforts before or after the transformation. Unwilling to trust her when she said she didn't mind, that she would rather be there for him than to know he was out there somewhere, suffering alone.

It hurt, to think of Remus suffering alone. And it hurt even more now that she knew Remus felt more for her than she'd ever realised, yet wouldn't let himself act on it, out of some misplaced sense of responsibility.

Andromeda could have given him a good shake for that. And she could just as easily have kissed him, for the tender concern on his face.

"Oh, Remus," she said. "I don't mind all those things. How can you not have realised that I don't mind?"

"I know you don't," Remus said, his voice so achingly grave. "And I appreciate that more than I can say. Your friendship means the world to me, Andromeda, I hope you know that. But it can't be any more than that. It simply can't."

Andromeda looked at Remus, clinging there to her doorway as though it were a life raft keeping him afloat in a turbulent sea, and she saw how earnestly he meant what he said, how he truly believed he could not allow himself to have love.

Maybe that would change. Maybe someday she would be able to change his mind. But right now, Remus looked like a man drowning, and that was a sight Andromeda hated to see.

"All right," she said. "I can't say I agree, but I understand. Won't you come inside, Remus? I'm still your friend, regardless."

"Thank you," Remus murmured, sweet and shy, and he finally stepped over the threshold into her house.


	6. A Flame (1986/1987)

Being "just friends" wasn't as easily done as said, of course. They were forever catching each other's glances too long, then trying to pretend they hadn't seen. They still laughed together, and shared their worries and troubles together, and spent much of their time together. The truth of it was that they were each other's main support, romantic relationship or no.

On 1 September, after Andromeda had seen Isidore off on the Hogwarts Express and arrived home to an empty house, Remus came over with an armful of flowers picked from the garden of the ramshackle cottage he rented in Yorkshire.

On 31 October, the anniversary of James and Lily's deaths, Andromeda provided Remus with dinner and distraction in the form of conversation on any and every topic she could think of, and Remus gave her a painful and grateful smile.

Andromeda invited Remus to spend Christmas with her and Isidore, because Remus' parents were dead and Andromeda's might as well have been for all the role they had in her life, and no one should have to be alone at Christmas.

Remus insisted on doing all the cooking, taking over Andromeda's kitchen for the day and teaching Isidore to make the stuffing that had been Remus' mother's favourite. Andromeda, seeing to the pudding from the worktop at the other end of the kitchen, watched the two of them, heads bent together over the baking pan, Isidore scooping up a finger's worth of stuffing to taste and Remus laughing at something Isidore had said. Isidore's hair had once again subtly shifted to match Remus' in colour, and Andromeda felt her cheeks ache from smiling.

After dinner had been eaten and cleared away, Andromeda gave in to Isidore's pleas to let him spend a few hours at the home of one of his school friends, Charlie Weasley. With the house suddenly quiet, Andromeda and Remus repaired to the sofa by the crackling fire with cups of mulled wine.

This time it was Remus, his eyes bright in the firelight, who leaned in and kissed her, his lips soft and gentle and so warm. Andromeda felt it flood through her, the rightness of this moment, of Remus' lips against hers.

Remus sighed and pulled away, eyes still closed. "I can't," he murmured. "Merlin, I want to, but I mustn't."

"Tell me why not," Andromeda said.

Remus' eyes snapped open. "I'm a Dark Creature," he said. "I am poor, a pariah, and a very real danger. I would never want to inflict any of that on you."

"Remus," she said. "I don't care a whit about wealth or reputation. If I cared about those things, I could just as well have stayed a Black. I burned that bridge a long, long time ago. As for physical safety, I know you would never allow any situation to come about where I might be in danger from you, and I know I would never allow it either. I wish you would trust me that far, trust me when I say I won't leave you alone with the responsibility of keeping us both safe."

Remus stared back at her. "You really mean that," he said, his eyes gone wide with wonder.

"I do."

"You don't mind…what I am."

"I don't mind _who_ you are. In fact, I like exactly who you are. Very much so."

"I… I need to think," Remus said. His glance darted to her lips, to his cup of mulled wine, to the dancing fire. "I don't think I can think very clearly just now. I may need some days to sort out what I ought to say to that. Can you give me some time?"

"Of course," Andromeda said. "Take all the time you need."  
  
*

He did take time. The new year had begun and Isidore had left again for Hogwarts, when Remus showed up at the door, hands shoved into his sleeves for warmth and the dove grey woollen scarf Andromeda had given him for Christmas wrapped around his neck. He looked a little wild-eyed, smiling with a strange and nervous happiness.

"Happy new year," Remus said.

"Happy new year," Andromeda returned, feeling a smile break across her own face at the sight of Remus in all his uncertainty and warmth. "Won't you come in?"

"I've missed you," he said a little bashfully, as he followed Andromeda into the sitting room.

"And I you," she said, and she turned in time to see Remus smile.

"And I began to think, maybe that really is what matters most. I've been doing a great deal of thinking," he said, once he was standing by the fire, unwinding his scarf and rubbing his hands together to warm them. "And oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, what I've been thinking about most is James and Lily. They married at a time when the world was falling apart around us. By any logical measure, it seems a crazy thing to have done. And yet, I don't think they were wrong to reach out for happiness, despite everything. I would like to think I'm even a fraction as brave as they were. Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Andromeda said. "Utterly." She stepped closer and took his cold hands in hers, wanting to warm them with her touch. Remus looked down at their hands, then up at her, and Andromeda saw that he had no idea where to start.

"I'm going to kiss you," she told him. "And if at any point anything is more than you want, I'll stop. But just for tonight, I want you to try not to worry so much about what you think is right or wrong or proper, and instead let yourself feel what it is that you want. Please," she added, because what else did she have but the honesty of her desire? She wanted this for herself, and for Remus too – for him to let himself let go.

Remus gazed back at her, his eyes deep and warm.

"Does that sound okay?" Andromeda asked softly.

"Yes," Remus said, never looking away. "Very much yes."

So Andromeda leaned in, closed her eyes and kissed him. Just that, his lips brushing against hers, lit her up through and through. Remus' hand came up to rest against her back, and Andromeda kissed him harder. Unexpectedly, Remus smiled against her lips.

"All right so far?" she murmured, nearly holding her breath in anticipation of his answer.

"Yes," he whispered. "Very much all right."

"I want this," she whispered back. "I want you. Just you, like this, just as you are."

Her eyes still tightly closed, Andromeda felt Remus nod. _I've done it all backwards,_ she thought. _First I got married, then I became a mother, and only then did I fall in love._

Opening her eyes, Andromeda took Remus' hand and led him away from the fire. With the gentle pressure of her hands against his shoulders, she lay him down on the sofa, then followed him down, her lips still seeking his. Remus pulled her to him, firmly, certain now. He reached up and found the clip that held her hair back, worked it loose, and Andromeda shook her hair free, until it fell in a dark curtain around them both. She slid one hand up under Remus' shirt, feeling the welcoming warmth of his skin, and Remus looked up into her face and smiled and smiled.

Where once Andromeda had had to remind herself that Remus was an adult now, no longer a child tagging along behind her baby cousin, these days she more often had to remind herself that he wasn't nearly as old as the hardship of his life had made him seem. It was only when he smiled that Remus looked his true age, with the carefree joy of a man not yet thirty.

"So," she said softly, pressing down against him, and Remus, following instinct at last, arched to meet her. "Are we doing this?"

"Yes," Remus agreed, a whisper in her ear. "We're doing this."

Careful not to sound judgemental about it, Andromeda asked, "Have you done this before?" With Remus and his insistence that everything about himself was dangerous and not to be allowed, it was difficult to know.

He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Yeah. Couple of times."

"Oh?" she teased, still gentle. "What happened to being too dangerous for anything beyond friendship?"

Remus' mouth made a wry twist. "It found itself on a collision course with being nineteen years old and horny, that's what happened to it."

Andromeda laughed with delight at the unexpected combination of Remus Lupin and the word _horny_ , then sobered at the thought that that might indeed have been the last time he'd allowed himself to give in to this, at the age of nineteen.

"Remus," she said, though he lifted his head and met her with kiss that left no doubt as to his intentions. "You're sure?"

"Yes," he said, his voice dropping lower, as long-suppressed desire began to slip out between his measured words. "I'm allowing myself to feel what I want, and I'm sure."

He was clear-eyed and certain, and Andromeda was only too glad to lean in and seal that sentiment with a searing kiss.


	7. A Steady Fire (1991)

They hosted a party, the day Isidore returned home as a Hogwarts graduate.  
  
Andromeda and Remus had spent the afternoon cooking and decorating, hanging lanterns and streamers from the trees and laying out a feast on two long garden tables. Now, Andromeda stood by the back door and looked out on the garden in the falling dusk, amazed at what a crowd she saw there. Friends of Isidore’s and their parents, friends of Andromeda’s and their children. Friends of Remus’, even though Remus never seemed to realise he had friends. The whole jolly, red-haired Weasley clan, thanks to Isidore’s friendship with their second son, Charlie, who had likewise just finished at Hogwarts.  
  
They’d done quite well for themselves, family of outcasts though they were – disowned Andromeda and her disinherited son and her lover who happened to be a werewolf. For proof, she needed look no further than this garden full of people who didn’t care in the least about any of those things, didn’t care that Andromeda had once been a daughter of the Black family – nor that she no longer was.  
  
And there, moving with ease among all of them, was her beautiful, grown-up son. Broad-shouldered and handsome, and an entire head taller than she, Isidore had Lucius’ pale hair – at least when he wasn’t deliberately turning it some outlandish colour – but in every other aspect he was undeniably a Black. Now more than ever, at eighteen and with his confident determination that he was going to take on the world and win, he reminded Andromeda so much of Sirius at that age, but with a gentler, less impulsive disposition that she hoped would help to keep him safe. Isidore was bound and determined to become an Auror, and Andromeda’s heart leapt to her throat every time she so much as thought of it.  
  
Coming up beside her, Remus slipped his hand into Andromeda’s. A small gesture, but it made her smile. She knew how hard Remus had had to work at himself and his fears in order to be with her, and then again in order to be with her unapologetically in public. It had taken years before she’d finally convinced him to move in with her. Even so, he still left every full moon for his old cottage in Yorkshire, which he’d fixed up with every possible protective precaution and charm, where he could transform without fear of harming anyone. But he always returned to Andromeda as soon after moonset as he was able, and he had slowly learned to allow her do whatever small things she could to look after him on those painful post-transformation mornings. Remus had been so unused to allowing anyone’s help, but watching him blossom into accepting her caring had been beautiful.  
  
Her mind a swirling mixture of all these tender thoughts, Andromeda tugged Remus closer to her and placed a gentle kiss at his temple.  
  
“What was that for?” he asked, amused.  
  
“Just for being there,” she said. Then she nudged him and nodded towards the guests milling and chatting in the garden in front of them. “This turned out well, didn’t it?”  
  
“It’s a lovely party,” he agreed. “Or did you mean that on a larger scale?”  
  
“I suppose I did, in a way,” Andromeda mused. “I worried, you know, when I took Isidore away from his father’s home. I didn’t want him growing up in that toxic place, but I didn’t want him to live all his life as an outsider, either. But it seems I needn’t have worried. He’s quite the life of the party.”  
  
At that moment, Isidore’s head was thrown back in laughter at something Charlie Weasley had said, but a few minutes before, Andromeda had also spotted her son deep in conversation with one of her colleagues from the Ministry. He had a way of moving through a crowd and finding common ground with everyone.  
  
“No, you needn’t have worried,” came Remus’ voice, warm and husky by her ear. “You’ve done very well by him.”  
  
Andromeda turned to him. “As have you. No, don’t protest, Remus. You’ve always been wonderful with Isidore.”  
  
She had always known that Remus, who had struggled to allow even Andromeda and her son into his life, would never let himself have children of his own. He would see it as inflicting danger and the world’s derision on a helpless being, and he would consider that unconscionable. So she knew, too, that he appreciated all the more the opportunity he’d had to be a part of Isidore’s life, to fulfil a bit of that fatherly role he’d never believed he would have any right to claim.  
  
Reaching up to brush a lock of prematurely greying hair from his eyes – Remus had more grey these days than she did – Andromeda said, “I want you to do something for me. No, that’s inaccurately phrased. You don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to, but I’d be so glad if you would consider it.”  
  
“All right,” Remus said, his face taking on the carefully blank look that was still his default when he was unsure of himself. Andromeda was enormously glad to see that look making an appearance less and less as the years went by.  
  
“Would you think about getting in touch with Harry?” she asked. “He’ll be starting at Hogwarts in the autumn, which means he’ll finally have the opportunity to interact with people from his past, if he wishes to. I imagine he could do with someone in his life who knew James and Lily, Remus. And I know you would be good for him.”  
  
A spasm of grief clenched Remus’ face. They’d been over this before, and Andromeda knew what he thought – that Harry was better off without him, he who had failed to recognise Sirius’ betrayal in time to save Harry’s parents.  
  
Andromeda also knew he would prove himself wrong, if he would only give himself a chance.  
  
Too many conflicting emotions to count warred their way across Remus’ features, but finally he said, “Yes. I’ll think about it.”  
  
“Thank you,” Andromeda said. “That’s all I’m asking.” Then she smiled and squeezed his hand. “Come on, let’s see if there’s anything left of that extraordinary trifle Molly brought.”  
  
*  
  
Remus came home on 31 July with an unreadable expression on his face.  
  
“How did it go?” Andromeda asked, jumping up to meet him. She’d been kneeling at the fire, talking through the Floo with Isidore at his new flat in London. He was living not far from the Ministry, where he would soon be starting his first year of Auror training.  
  
Remus came to join Andromeda by the now cooling fireplace and ran a hand through his hair, still looking baffled.  
  
“Harry’s well, I think,” he said. “At least, as well as can be expected. In fact, better than could be expected, probably.” He rubbed his palm distractedly over his forehead, which was deeply furrowed in thought.  
  
After giving Andromeda’s suggestion careful consideration, Remus had sent an inquiry to Dumbledore and learned that Hagrid, the Hogwarts Gamekeeper, had been charged with making sure Harry received his letter from the school, and with taking the boy to Diagon Alley to buy his school supplies. Dumbledore was firm on the importance of not overwhelming Harry just yet, but Remus had been given permission to meet up with Hagrid and Harry in Diagon Alley and say a brief hello to the child of his dearest friends, a boy Remus hadn’t seen since infancy.  
  
Even with Dumbledore’s blessing, Remus had agonised over whether he should go, whether it was right to impose himself in Harry’s life. Andromeda found it hard to entirely understand Remus’ hesitance, although she certainly sympathised with the agony she could see it caused him. But she knew better than anyone that Remus had been a father figure for years now, and he hadn’t caused Isidore any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact.  
  
But grief and guilt twisted Remus’ ability to see himself objectively. Where Harry was concerned, Remus was always the failed friend, the one person who could have, should have, stood between Harry’s parents and death.  
  
He had, at last and at Andromeda’s gentle urging, agreed to go to Diagon Alley. He did want to see for himself that Harry was well, and to let Harry know that he had friends here in the wizarding world. But he was insistent that he would not bring up James and Lily, not yet. Now was the time for Harry to be learning about the magical world into which he had been born, Remus had said, not to be dwelling on the tragedies that had followed his birth.  
  
Andromeda wasn’t sure she agreed, but it was for Remus to decide on the path that was best for him. She was just glad he had decided that path did include Harry.  
  
“So you saw Harry,” she prompted, because Remus was gazing into the empty fireplace, his forehead still creased in thought.  
  
“Yes,” he said. “I caught up with him and Hagrid between some of the shops they visited, and we talked for a few minutes. Andromeda, he didn’t know. He didn’t know that he’s a wizard, he didn’t know how James and Lily died, he didn’t know any of it. Lily’s sister kept him in the dark all these years.”  
  
He looked so pained at the thought. Andromeda reached out and touched his arm.  
  
“But now he’ll know,” she said. “He’s starting at Hogwarts in a month, and then he’ll learn all about his history. You needn’t feel bad,” she added, because it was clear Remus was now feeling guilty for all those years he had been absent from Harry’s life.  
  
Remus nodded slowly, then reached up to clasp Andromeda’s hand where it rested on his arm. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, he’s going to be at Hogwarts. That’s a heartening thought.”  
  
He looked down at their joined hands and smiled. Then frowned.  
  
“I saw Narcissa today, as well,” he said. “In Diagon Alley. I passed her coming out of Madam Malkin’s, just before Harry went in to try on robes. She didn’t recognise me. I doubt she even knows who I am.” He glanced up at Andromeda. “Her son Draco was there as well, in the shop. I saw him through the window.” He frowned more deeply. “He looks a great deal like Isidore, in some ways. His hair colour, and a bit around the eyes. He’ll be starting at Hogwarts this year as well.” He gave Andromeda a searching look. “Does it bother you? To think of Narcissa and her son, and how she’s stepped into the life you once had?”  
  
Andromeda returned Remus’ gaze, his look of gentle concern, and gave the question the consideration it deserved. “No,” she said at last. “There are many things I wish could be different – I wish there were some way to be on speaking terms with my sister, despite everything, and I wish Isidore could know his brother someday – but there is nothing about the fundamentals that I would change. I’m exactly where I want to be.”  
  
Remus smiled. “All right, then. I’m very glad to hear it.”


	8. An Unexpected Offer (1993)

They’d spent much of the summer, she and Remus, keeping as close to her battered old wizarding wireless as if they’d been Permanently Stuck there. Keeping track of the progress, or lack of progress, in the hunt for one Sirius Black, escaped convict.  
  
Andromeda had felt physically ill when she’d first heard he had broken out of Azkaban. She’d spent so long repressing her feelings about Sirius, forcibly divorcing her fond memories of her impetuous but big-hearted cousin from the reality of the murderer he’d become, but now it all came rushing sickeningly back. Sirius and Regulus, the littlest ones, and neither of them she’d been able to hold under her wing when she’d escaped.  
  
Remus, too, had developed a pinched, anxious look that Andromeda didn’t like to see. She wanted so desperately for all that grief and loss to be behind him for good.  
  
At least Isidore was still in training, not yet a full Auror, and thus not likely to be pulled into an active role in the manhunt.  
  
At least Remus had a hesitant relationship with Harry these days, more like a student and a well-liked teacher than a boy and his almost-uncle, but still it was something good in Remus’ life to help counterbalance the endless news cycle on Sirius’ escape.  
  
Then one particular summer day, Remus came home with a strange, wild smile on his face.  
  
“Andromeda,” he said.  
  
She looked up in surprise from the legal brief she was reading at her desk in the corner of the sitting room she had converted into a home office. Remus was perched in the doorway, one hand balanced against its frame, the other clutching the scroll of a letter.  
  
“I’ve had an unexpected job offer,” he said.  
  
Andromeda folded her reading glasses on the desktop, then stood and went to him. “A job offer?”  
  
She knew Remus considered himself lucky if he was able to hold down a job for several months at a stretch before his employers grew fed up with his frequent illness-related absences, suspicious about the timing of those absences, or both. Remus had a brilliant mind and he was nearly always engaged in one or two research projects of his own on the side, but in all the time she’d known him, Andromeda had yet to see him to hold a job worthy of his talents. Remus seemed to accept this as his lot in life, but Andromeda didn’t in the least see why that should be so.  
  
Wordlessly, Remus held out the scroll to Andromeda, and she took it and read the first few lines.  
  
“Dumbledore wants you to teach at Hogwarts,” she breathed. “Oh, Remus, accept the position. You must.”  
  
“It will likely only be for a year,” he pointed out. “I know some people doubt that the curse on the position exists, but I’ve never yet seen a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher last more than a year at Hogwarts. And I suspect Dumbledore chose me largely because – well. Given the events of this summer. I suppose he thinks I’ll be an asset.”  
  
“That doesn’t detract from the fact that you’re a brilliant choice for the position,” Andromeda said firmly, pressing the letter back into his hand. “Stop talking yourself down, Remus. You’re a wonderful teacher. I only wonder Dumbledore didn’t ask you sooner.”  
  
“And I’ll have to take the strictest possible precautions at the full moons, if I’m to be living in the same castle as all those children…”  
  
“Remus.”  
  
He stopped talking to look at her, so Andromeda took the opportunity to press a kiss to his mouth. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, when she’d pulled away again. “You deserve this.”  
  
He smiled. It was one of her favourite Remus smiles, bashful and sweet.  
  
“You know,” he said, then stopped and cleared his throat. He waved vaguely with the scroll in his hand. “There’s a second parchment here that details the logistics if I accept the post, and apparently the school provides housing in Hogsmeade for spouses. That is to say, if we were – I don’t know if you would want to, but…” His voice trailed away.  
  
Andromeda pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh. It wasn’t a laughing matter, really, but there was something so dear to her, still, about Remus’ innate caution in matters of the heart. “Are you asking me what I think you’re asking?”  
  
His lips twitched into a wry shape – another Remus smile she loved. “I suppose that all depends on how you’d feel about it if I were.”  
  
“I would like to be married to you,” Andromeda said. “Yes, I think I’d like that very much.”  
  
The joy that burst across his face was a wonder to behold. “If you’re willing to have a destitute and dangerous werewolf…”  
  
“I most certainly am, if you’ll have a forty-year-old divorcée with a son already grown.”  
  
“Andromeda,” he protested. “That’s not even remotely equivalent.”  
  
“But it is,” she said. “Because that’s who I am, and that’s who you are. And I happen to think we do just fine for ourselves, exactly as we are.”  
  
Remus grinned at her. “Come here,” he said, though Andromeda was already standing about as close to him as it was possible to do. He reached up and threaded a hand through her hair, and she leaned in and kissed the evening stubble of his cheek.  
  
“Hogwarts,” she mused. “It will give you a chance to keep up with Harry, since you’ll see him there all the time. I’ll commute to the Ministry, but we’ll have evenings together in Hogsmeade.” Andromeda hadn’t lived in a wizarding town in a long time, and found she quite liked the idea.  
  
“Don’t sell the house,” Remus warned. “Truly, this will most likely be only a one-year position. You’ll want somewhere to come back to, afterwards.”  
  
“ _We’ll_ want somewhere to come back to,” Andromeda corrected with a smile. Remus still sometimes forgot to include himself in the future planning of this relationship, but Andromeda forgave him that. He’d spent so much of his life believing he would always be alone. “I know I don’t have the most stellar record in this respect, but this time when I marry, I plan for it to be forever.”  
  
Remus’ face lit up, as if he’d already forgotten they had made that particular decision and the reminder of it came as a delight to him.  
  
Andromeda returned his smile, and kissed him. “Hogwarts professor,” she said softly. “Look at you now, Remus Lupin.”  
  
“In many ways, I doubt this will be the easiest of years,” Remus warned softly against Andromeda’s lips, his hands warm and solid at the small of her back.  
  
Andromeda could hear all the things he wasn’t saying. The spectre of Sirius, somewhere out there, a dangerous unknown. The ghosts of both their pasts, walking the halls of Hogwarts in the living form of James and Lily’s son Harry and Narcissa and Lucius’ son Draco. Remus still struggled to balance his desire to be close to Harry with his fear of doing the boy more harm than good. Andromeda still chafed at the Ministry’s blindness to its own endemic corruption and prejudice, and increasingly doubted whether it would ever be possible to make the change she sought from within. No, it would not all be easy.  
  
“We’ll manage,” Andromeda said firmly, her arms around Remus. “We have each other.”


	9. Lie Low at the Lupins’ (1995)

“‘Lo, Andromeda,” Sirius said, his expression something that aimed to be a grin but didn’t quite make it, and it was such a pale, sad imitation of the past that Andromeda gasped out a sob and pulled him from her doorstep into an embrace.  
  
“You _idiot_ ,” she said fiercely into his shaggy, too-long hair. “You utter, absolute idiot, Sirius Black.”  
  
“ _I’m_ an idiot?” he mumbled, voice muffled into Andromeda’s shoulder. “Oi, who figured out how to escape from Azkaban when no one had ever done it before, I ask you that?”  
  
“Come inside,” she said. “Please, come inside.”  
  
When Remus had first told her, over a year ago now, of the revelations on that full moon night at the end of his time teaching at Hogwarts – Sirius was innocent, Peter was alive, Sirius had never been the Secret Keeper after all – Andromeda had first barely been able to believe it, and then she had believed it all too well.  
  
Of course Sirius had been innocent; of course Sirius would rather have died than betray James, the chosen brother Sirius had loved more than the brother with whom he shared blood. It was unthinkable that Sirius could ever have betrayed James.  
  
So how had Andromeda let herself think it all those years?  
  
“I’m sorry, Sirius,” she said, once she had him seated in front of the fire. He looked chilled through, for all that it was high summer.  
  
He glanced over at her, pained. “Please don’t apologise. If anything, I should be the one saying I’m sorry. I’m the one who messed up everything.”  
  
Andromeda bit her lip against everything she wanted to say to him. Yes, he’d made a mess of all of it. Yes, he should have gone to the Ministry with what he knew about Peter, rather than trying to confront him himself. He’d thrown away the better part of his life, landing himself in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. But in a way, did it matter? Sirius had probably felt his life was over anyway, when James died.  
  
“Well, you’re here now,” she said. “And I’m glad.”  
  
During the year Remus had taught at Hogwarts, he’d spent the full moons locked up alone in his office at the school under the influence of the Wolfsbane Potion that the Potions Master, Severus Snape, had brewed for him each month. This was a recently developed concoction that didn’t save Remus from the painful transformation, but did allow him to keep his human mind while in the wolf’s body. All that year, Andromeda had offered time and again that Remus could take the potion and transform at home, at their house in Hogsmeade, but the thought had been too uncomfortable to him – he felt he should transform alone, potion or no, just in case.  
  
And so Andromeda hadn’t known anything of the events of that night, of Remus’ confrontation with Sirius in the Shrieking Shack at the edge of Hogsmeade, until Remus had arrived home the next morning, scratched and bruised from running wild and transformed in the Forbidden Forest, and ashen-faced with penitence at his carelessness.  
  
“I was loose on the school grounds the whole night, Andromeda,” he’d said, voice shaking with horror as she stroked his hair back from his head where it rested in her lap. She’d wished so badly that she could charm the pain and tension out of his body. “I could have run into a student. I could have bitten or _killed_ a student. It was unconscionable. No amount of shock over seeing Peter’s name on the map excuses what I might have done.”  
  
When Snape had then “accidentally” let slip in public about Remus’ condition, Remus had resigned and gone from the school willingly, feeling it was no more than he deserved.  
  
Only one good thing had come from that debacle: Now that Andromeda knew about the Wolfsbane Potion – and trust Remus not to have mentioned this thing that was so small on the scale of Andromeda’s salary, but saved him so much grief! – she procured it for him every month. And he transformed in the cottage in Yorkshire, then returned to her in their old house in the Muggle village, where Remus had a part-time teaching job at the local primary school that Isidore had attended, a world away from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade and talented but treacherous Potions Masters.  
  
Well, no, several good things had come of that night in the Shrieking Shack: Harry now knew the full truth of his parents, and of his parents’ friends. At last, Harry knew who Remus and Sirius were to him.  
  
Sirius. That was the other thing that full moon night had brought them: Sirius, alive and escaped and innocent.  
  
He was a shadow of the boy he had been, sitting there hunched around himself on Andromeda’s sofa, his once-handsome face lost behind his sunken eyes and hollow cheekbones, his elbows and shoulder blades protruding from a distressingly gaunt frame. The sight made Andromeda want to feed him. Feed him and clothe him and wrap him in warm blankets by the fire, just as she’d done for Remus, when he’d turned up on her doorstep all those years ago.  
  
As if he’d read her thoughts, Sirius glanced up, a flicker of his old humour behind those washed-out eyes.  
  
“So, what’s all this then, anyway?” he asked. “All I do is go away for a decade or so, and you start getting it on with my friend behind my back?”  
  
“If by ‘getting it on’ you mean ‘being happily married to,’ then yes, I suppose that description is accurate,” Andromeda said archly.  
  
Sirius threw back his head and let loose an actual laugh, reassuringly loud. “Oh, Dromeda, you are such a Black. Sorry, but you really are.”  
  
Andromeda looked over at him – little Sirius, her little cousin, not lost to her after all – and she chuckled, too. “Maybe so. I’ve been a number of things in my life, but I suppose there are some ways in which that one will always be true.”  
  
“When can I see Izzy?” Sirius asked, suddenly urgent. “Where is he living now?”  
  
“In London,” Andromeda said, taken aback by the intensity in her cousin’s voice. “He’s an Auror, fully qualified now. He completed his training last year.”  
  
“I did think about him,” Sirius said. “And about you. It wasn’t just thoughts of remorse and revenge every waking moment, though there was a lot of that too. I used to think about you and Izzy and hope that you really did make it out, that you were the ones who managed to escape from all the family madness.” He gave her a crooked, small smile. “Guess you did, huh?”  
  
Andromeda swallowed down the lump that rose in her throat. “Yes, we did.” She reached out and took Sirius’ hand in hers, his wrist cold and bony under her fingers. “We’ll get him to come visit, when he can get away from work. I know you’re supposed to be in hiding, but I don’t see any reason why Isidore couldn’t come to see you.”  
  
Sirius nodded, but his eyes had gone distant. Andromeda wondered what he was thinking about, when his expression went vacant like that.  
  
*  
  
When Remus got home from his Saturday tutoring in the village, Andromeda watched how they looked at each other, her husband and her cousin: that moment of instinctive, wary hesitance, then the palpable relief as they fell into an embrace of greeting.  
  
“It’s good to see you,” Remus said, when he’d pulled away again. “Dumbledore wrote that you would be coming sometime soon. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, you know that.”  
  
Remus glanced over at Andromeda, and she nodded. They’d sat down and talked about it as soon as Dumbledore’s letter had arrived, and were in perfect agreement: Providing a place to stay was the very least they could do for Sirius after all these years.  
  
“Thanks,” Sirius said, his voice gruff.  
  
“Well,” Remus said, not seeming to know what to do with his hands. He clapped Sirius on the arm again. “You’ve certainly kept low to the ground, haven’t you?”  
  
“Not by my choice,” Sirius growled, the first anger Andromeda had heard from him since he’d arrived. “And I came back as soon as I heard Harry needed me. I’ve been hiding out near Hogsmeade for this last while.”  
  
“Oh, Sirius,” Andromeda said. Would he never learn common sense? “You were supposed to be keeping safe.”  
  
“I’m supposed to be keeping _Harry_ safe,” Sirius countered.  
  
Remus, his hand still gripping Sirius’ arm, looked at Andromeda, and she read his expression loud and clear: There was no arguing with Sirius on this point.  
  
She sighed. “Look, why don’t you two sit and catch up for a bit, and I’ll start dinner?”  
  
But both of them were too full of nervous energy to sit still, and insisted on joining Andromeda in the kitchen. Remus slipped in close and planted a soft kiss below Andromeda’s ear, before he turned away to start peeling potatoes, and Andromeda saw Sirius watching them, saw him still finding it strange and new to see the two of them together.  
  
Andromeda wasn’t concerned. She knew once he’d got used to the idea he would more than approve.  
  
She handed Sirius a knife and a chopping board and a bunch of carrots, fresh from the garden with dirt still clinging to them, and he smiled a little and set to work. He’d managed to obtain a wand again, somehow, though Andromeda could see it wasn’t the same one he’d had as a boy. But she saw how he delighted in being able to do magic for even such a small task as chopping carrots. Twelve years was an unfathomably long time to live without magic.  
  
“Voldemort is back. You know that, right?” Sirius said abruptly, his wand held aloft and the knife tapping away against the board.  
  
Andromeda sucked in a breath. She glanced to Remus, and saw how his face went tight.  
  
“Yes,” she said. “When we had the owl from Dumbledore, he also explained what happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament.”  
  
“It’s true, then, that Harry saw Voldemort that night?” Remus asked, sounding reluctant to have to say the words.  
  
“And Peter, too,” Sirius spat. “Voldemort’s devoted servant. We let that rat go, and he scuttled straight back to his master.” The knife clanged against the cutting board and Sirius reached out to still it with his hand.  
  
“We did the right thing,” Remus returned stiffly. “We did what Harry asked us to do.”  
  
Andromeda watched as Sirius forcibly slowed his breathing and gave a jerky nod. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. Doesn’t mean we’re not still obliged to try to undo the damage we caused when we let him get away.”  
  
“The Order is reforming, I take it?” Remus asked, eyes on Sirius. He managed to sound almost conversational as he said it.  
  
Sirius nodded, his shoulders still hunched and tight. “That’s what I’ve been doing since the end of the Tournament. Going around to everyone from last time, letting them know.”  
  
The Order of the Phoenix, the underground organisation against Voldemort of which Sirius and Remus had both been members. The organisation that had lost more of its number in battle than even the Aurors had done. Andromeda thought of it all happening again, war rising up to devour another generation, and felt ill.  
  
“Of course,” Remus said, and Andromeda only realised a question had passed silently between the two men when he repeated himself, adding, “Of course I’ll join.”  
  
“As will I,” Andromeda said. She set aside the casserole she’d been preparing and went over to rest a hand on Remus’ arm. He dried his hands on a kitchen towel, and reached up to cover her hand with his.  
  
“It will be dangerous,” he said.  
  
“And it was never going to be any other way. I’ve been living my life around the edges of this battle for a long time, Remus. It’s time to fight.”  
  
“I’ve offered Dumbledore the use of the house,” Sirius broke in, hands braced against the worktop, carrots forgotten. Remus turned to him, momentarily baffled, but Andromeda knew exactly what he meant: the house at Grimmauld Place, the mouldering old seat of the House of Black.  
  
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Do you want to go back there?”  
  
“Doesn’t matter what I want,” Sirius said, shrugging irritably. “The place has got every protective charm a person could throw at it, and the Order needs somewhere to serve as Headquarters. It’ll do. And it’s about the only thing I have to offer.”  
  
“Then it’s kind of you to offer it,” Andromeda said.  
  
Sirius made a pale attempt at a smile. “Hey, at least this means I’ll finally be able to offer _you_ a place to go, instead of always turning up at your door.”  
  
One hand still holding Remus’, Andromeda leaned in to place a kiss on her cousin’s gaunt cheek. “Yes,” she said. “We’ll be turning up at your door regularly, Sirius. You can count on that. And Isidore – much as I wish he wouldn’t, he’s going to want to join as well, and I don’t see that I can stop him. It’s going to be quite the family affair, this Order of yours.”  
  
Sirius’ smile this time was considerably less wan. “It is, isn’t it? Think Dumbledore would let Harry come stay for a bit, before the school year starts?”  
  
“I’ll write him and ask,” Remus promised.  
  
“And I expect the Weasleys will be interested as well,” Andromeda said. “Harry is quite good friends with their youngest son.”  
  
“You’ll have a full house on your hands, Sirius,” Remus said, a laugh in his voice. “All we blood traitors and outcasts of the wizarding world are going to be pounding down your door.”  
  
Sirius’ smile continued to grow, as he looked back and forth between the two of them. “Bring on the wizarding outcasts, then,” he said. “From this moment on, they’re officially welcome at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Let all the strays come to my door.”

  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
  
 **The End**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In writing this story – AU though it is – at times I very much drew on my headcanon of the “canon” version of the same events. That includes “[A New World Bursting into Bloom](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1961700),” of course (Andromeda meeting Ted, and narrowly escaping the destiny her family had laid out for her), but also places where I’ve written about Remus and Sirius’ friendship (“[What I Have Taken Long Before](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1463332/chapters/3082888)” for their rapprochement during the Lie Low at Lupin’s period, and also much of their dynamic in “[Be the Light in My Lantern](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2255736/chapters/4952196)”), and Andromeda and Sirius’ friendship ([Chapter Four](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2255736/chapters/5202314) of “Be the Light in My Lantern,” as well as the one-shot “[Forget this Tapestry](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1097455)”). If any of those interest you, check ‘em out.
> 
> And if you’ve read this far, sticking through to the end with this rarest of rare pairs…thank you!


End file.
